If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal.

The panel will focus on the digitization of “unique” collections of materials that are related to American literature or culture, broadly defined. These might be collections of non-traditional or non-canonical texts, genres, or forms; materials related to marginalized individuals or groups; or collections of materials that for either historical or technical reasons present unique challenges for those looking to digitize them. While we are open to the form that these talks might take, we welcome and encourage collaborative presentations and discussions of works in progress. We imagine that panelists might discuss both the challenges (bureaucratic or institutional, economic, technical, theoretical) and affordances of dealing with such collections of materials, with an eye towards assisting other scholars who may encounter similar issues in their own digitization projects, and explaining how such collections offer new possibilities for scholarship, teaching, digital preservation, and/or public engagement.

At the Digital Americanists business meeting in May of 2018, DA members present at the American Literature Association (ALA) conference in San Francisco, CA, unanimously voted for instituting a travel grant for graduate students to cover some of the costs associated with participating in DA-sponsored events. Our upcoming call for papers for ALA 2019 will include the option for graduate students to apply for $100 travel funding. Funding will be awarded based on financial need (preference may be given to graduate students without existing support for travel and professional development) as well as the strength of the proposed paper. Scholars without institutional affiliation/support will also be considered.

The Digital Americanists would like to thank those DA members who support our organisation with annual donations for making this travel grant possible. We see this grant as a first step to making the Digital Americanists more welcoming to early career scholars. If you would also like to support us, please consider becoming a donor.

The Cather Project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announces the availability of a Research Grant for visiting scholars. This grant provides financial support for scholars to travel to and reside in Lincoln, NE, for four consecutive weeks, in order to conduct research on Willa Cather using Cather resources in Nebraska and at UNL.

Applications are invited from early career scholars, advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, and faculty not yet tenured. Projects should reflect the need for research at the UNL Archives and in Nebraska. Each Woodress Research Grant is $4,000 and the scholar is expected to be in residence in Lincoln for four consecutive weeks during March 1 – December 20, 2019. The Cather Project will assist with advice about travel, lodging, and a trip to the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, Nebraska (2 ½ hours by car) to enable the scholar to research materials in the Foundation’s archives and visit the area of Cather’s childhood.

The Cather Project produces the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition and Cather Studies, both published by the University of Nebraska Press. The Archives and Special Collections of the UNL Libraries hold the largest collection of Cather letters to and from her; edited typescripts; manuscripts; multiple editions of her works; and many other Cather-associated materials.

Funding for the grants is from the Roberta and James Woodress Fund (created from a gift by Roberta and James Woodress; Mr. Woodress was an eminent Cather biographer and emeritus professor of English at University of California-Davis).

To apply, please send, as e-mail attachments, to Beth Burke at eburke3@unl.edu, the following items:

your c.v.

a statement of no more than 3 pages describing the proposed research project and the importance of materials and resources at UNL to your project

a sample of scholarly writing (20-25pp: preferably focusing on Cather, though not necessarily exclusively)

In addition, two letters of recommendation should be sent directly by your recommenders to Beth (eburke3@unl.edu). Letters should be specific to the fellowship and proposed project rather than general letters of recommendation from your job placement dossier.

The deadline for submission of materials is DECEMBER 30, 2018 and we will inform successful applicants by FEBRUARY 1, 2019.

We are especially interested in submissions focusing on data-sets, texts, archives, tools or projects/methodologies that deal with intersections of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, and/or disability in literature and digital work. Submissions focusing on texts from any period of American literature are welcome.

In keeping with the Digital Americanists’ commitment to a broad understanding of American literature, culture, digital media, and computational methods, we are pleased to consider submissions that address any facet of the relationship between those terms or that question the terms themselves. Submissions from early-career scholars and members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged.

We are happy to announce that the Digital Americanists have found a new board. Beginning September 2017, the leadership of DA will be:

Stefan Schöberlein (President) is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Iowa, the managing editor of theWalt Whitman Quarterly Review, and a research assistant for the Walt Whitman Archive. His work has been published in journals like Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, American Literature, and the Journal of American Studies.

The new board looks forward to helping share and facilitate discussions of the exciting digital work happening in the field of American literature and culture around the world. Stay tuned to our website and social media channels for more information about upcoming DA events.

We would like to close by thanking Matthew Wilkens, Ryan Cordell, and Matthew Lavin for their years of dedication to the Digital Americanists.